


Dusk

by perihadion



Series: Chiaroscuro [3]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied Illya Kuryakin/Gaby Teller, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 17:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15005546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perihadion/pseuds/perihadion
Summary: After a mission in New York, Gaby meets up with an old friend to blow off some steam.





	Dusk

I don’t mean to come off selfish,  
but I want it all.

The Weeknd, “Prisoner”

*

Gaby surveyed the high-class New York bar as she walked in: her mark was already there, sipping what looked like a scotch in a table that was not quite in the corner but close to it. She ordered a Manhattan and indicated her man to the bartender. “He’ll cover it.”

She slid into the seat across from him, supposing they must look like lovers; at least, that was the intention. He cocked an eyebrow at her, “A Manhattan? No White Russian?”

She sighed. “How are you, Solo?”

He leaned back in his chair and seemed to take a moment to consider the question. “Well,” he said. “I had an unusual visitor recently.”

She feigned ignorance, though she had a good idea who he meant. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” he said. “In fact, I believe he is a mutual friend. Actually, I even think you may have been in touch with him lately?”

Her stomach twisted. ‘In touch’ — yes, and she had remembered how good it felt to be in touch with him; problematically, she was finding it difficult to forget again. The feelings she had carefully compartmentalised about Illya had started to bleed back into her everyday life and trying to put them back in their box was like cleaning up an oil slick. They reached long black fingers into every part of her and it seemed to get worse every day. She supposed it was the hope that he had given her which made it so hard this time. Or maybe it was just that getting older made it harder to let go.

“Yes,” she said.

He looked at the bartender, then around the room. “So, how are you?”

She shrugged. “Waverly keeps me busy. I accomplished what I needed to here. I’ll be flying back to London tomorrow. So, on the balance, all is well.”

He smiled, “That’s good to hear.” He wouldn’t push it. She appreciated that about him. But he had raised the spectre and now she could think of nothing else. What did he know? Where was Illya? Why had they met? What had happened?

“How —” she began, and she felt her heart pounding. She paused for a moment and then tried again, “How is our mutual friend?”

“Still in one piece,” was the response, “for now.”

She took a sip of her drink. “Did he talk to you about —? His plans?”

Solo looked around them again. They shouldn’t really talk about this in public, but they could be vague about it. She needed to know.

“It appears he has made up his mind.”

“I see,” she said. “Odds of success?”

He made a non-committal gesture. “Too complex to calculate. I tried to change his mind, of course.”

Gaby nodded. Of course.

She couldn’t stand this anxiety. She knew so little about what was happening. She felt like a father sequestered to the waiting room while his wife laboured down the hall; this would be a difficult birth, with many complications — the rebirth of Illya Kuryakin, KGB’s finest, as Illya Kuryakin, traitor. She knew she was revealing her hand to Solo but it was hard to play it cool regarding this subject, especially lately.

“How is Waverly?” Solo asked, changing tack, giving her a chance to regroup.

She shrugged. “He’s Waverly.”

Solo chuckled. “I miss the old goat.”

She smiled. “He does not miss you at all.”

“Well, you were always the favourite.” He took a sip of his scotch. “I like to think I came in a solid second place.”

She was grateful to him for this. His easy way was so reassuring. She wondered if he worried about any of it at all. “Second from the top?” she said, “Or from the bottom?”

He laughed at that. “C'est blanc bonnet et bonnet blanc.”

Privately, she disagreed with him. Waverly had always had a barely-hidden fatherly affection for all three of them but, for all that he had disapproved of their affair, she thought maybe he had a little more affection for Illya than Solo — simply because between Illya and Solo, Illya needed it more.

Not that he had ever vocalised his disappointment in them. If he had, he would have had to acknowledge it was happening, and that would have meant disciplining them both and terminating Illya’s contract. She had always felt that his refusal to do this indicated that his desire to protect Illya outweighed even his desire to protect her. But it was clear from the expression on his face when they stood a little too close to each other, when they caught each other’s eye too meaningfully; even if she had missed those little breaks in character, it was obvious by the fact that he eventually started splitting them up on missions.

“No need for the muscle on this one,” he would say, clapping Illya on the back. Illya would remind him that he was also the technician, and Waverly would smile and say, “Yes, well. No need for that either. It’s quite a low-tech mission.” There were a number of times when Solo was forced to grapple with technology he had no experience with because of it, and what was that if not proof that their affair endangered all three of them as well as the mission? But they couldn’t stop.

She couldn’t fault Waverly. He thought he was doing what was best for both of them, for all three of them. The truth was that he was right: it was safer then, and safer now, for them to have as little to do with each other as possible. He just didn’t realise that by the time they had officially been recognised as an agency the situation was already too dire for her and Illya and there was nothing he could do. But it had been nice to have an overprotective father figure in her life, for the first time.

She downed the rest of her drink.

“Another?” Solo asked. She paused. If she got drunk tonight things could end badly. But —

“Yes,” she said. He nodded, and approached the bar. She leaned back and looked around the room. It was a Thursday evening, not too full. Nobody rang any alarm bells really. It was the exact type of place that Solo _would_ bring her to. He had probably been here before. He wouldn’t bring her somewhere unsafe. In fact, she wouldn’t be too surprised if he owned the place and had populated it with actors for her benefit. That was the type of thing he seemed capable of.

Sometimes she felt he was capable of anything — capable of a miracle. Her stomach twisted again, and she set her jaw. She didn’t want to hope. Hope was dangerous. What was her life but a series of men returning to her only to be killed?

But the three of them had taken the world on before and won. And if anyone could do it, surely it was Napoleon Solo. The notorious cat burglar pulling off the most elaborate heist, the cherry on top of his career: to steal an agent from the KGB — and not just any agent, but the jewel in their crown. Or — whatever communists had instead of jewels and crowns.

*

The second drink led to a third, and now they were really talking. They had done this many times when they worked together: they would meet at an expensive bar and Solo would ply her with cocktails, make her laugh, and try to extract her most intimate secrets. When she was warmed from the inside out she would go home and try to read herself to sleep, or — if Illya was in town — to his place to make love (and sometimes she would go there anyway if he was away and move the pieces around on his chess board).

It had been a good life, before it turned bad.

U.N.C.L.E. wasn’t built to last. It was only a matter of time before it ruffled too many feathers, thwarted too many national interests.

Now even when she was having fun she was at least a little miserable. Even Solo seemed the same way. His laughter had always been a little insincere but lately she might even call it hollow. She had never considered the possibility that he could also miss Illya: they had butted heads so much, over so many things, over trivial things, over almost everything. But maybe that was their way of showing affection. She supposed that was what family was all about. Not that she would know anything about that.

“Remember —” Solo was holding back laughter, “remember the damn cat that kept breaking into the office and scratching up Waverly’s desk?”

She laughed too. That business had only started a couple of weeks before they were formally disbanded, so it was bittersweet. “Yes, he was so angry! — and every time we tried to cat-proof the place it found a new way to get in. And only Waverly’s desk! Never anybody else’s.”

Solo shook his head. “Do you know what happened to that cat?”

She smiled. “He took it home.” Then, at his face, “No, really. He called it Nephew. It spends all day sleeping on a silk pillow and drinking cream. Now it looks like a completely different cat, like a cat that ate the original cat.”

“He called it _Nephew_?” Solo said.

Gaby nodded.

Solo shook his head and took a sip of his drink. “That limey bastard. He’s the craziest one of all of us.”

They ran out of things to say after that, and sat in silence for a few minutes, contemplating their drinks. Gaby knew that Solo was gearing up for something and eventually he took a deep breath, and said, “What do you actually want, Gaby?”

She knew what he meant and wouldn’t insult him by pretending otherwise. “I don’t know,” she said.

He nodded. “I just keep thinking about this whole thing, trying to figure out what’s going to happen, you know? I mean if it all comes off. But I can’t picture it.”

She ran her fingers up and down the sides of her glass, looking down into her drink. “I know what you mean,” she said. Then she took a deep breath. “I think I just want —” even saying it made her want to cry, even saying this thing that they both knew and he was forcing her to say aloud, “— I just want to be with him.”

Solo looked like he was experiencing a real feeling for the first time in his life and didn’t know what was happening to him. She looked away. “You know, it’s not like I am the type of girl who has dreamed of a ring, and a house, and a lawn and all that stuff. Just being able to be with him without it being such a big fucking deal — but that feels like asking for the world.”

Solo was silent. He frowned a little. She wondered what he was thinking. He started to say something, and then closed his mouth. Then he began again. “I’m trying to picture it, now. Him living the domestic life. Reading the newspaper at the table before going off to his 9-to-5.”

She stared at him, and then she found herself trying to imagine the same thing.

“You know?” Solo said, “Bowl of cornflakes in front of him. Kids underfoot.”

“That —” she started, and then she started laughing before she could finish her sentence. “I can’t imagine it.” But then, it’s not as if she could imagine herself as the doting housewife either.

“No,” Solo said. “No, I think he would be really good at it actually. Very punctual. Great relationship with his supervisors. He might even change the baby. Two movements. Efficient. No crying.”

“Yes,” Gaby said, nodding, buying into this surreal fantasy of his. “Now I can see it. And when the kids misbehave?” she shrugged. “He’d just smile and give them a big Kiss and they would be perfect angels for, oh, twenty minutes or so.”

“Now you get it,” he said, and clinked her glass.

“Am I selfish?” she asked suddenly, the alcohol definitely getting to her now. “If this doesn’t work out —”

“Don’t do that,” he said, reaching out and grabbing her hand. “You didn’t ask him to make this choice. He’s a stubborn asshole and this is what he decided.” She could feel it happening now, the tears pricking at her eyes; she clenched her jaw and looked down so he wouldn’t see. She knew he was right but it was almost impossible to bear. She turned her hand over to hold his, and then she frowned. His jacket sleeve had pulled back when he leaned over the table and now she could see something that did not match the rest of his clothing.

“Nice watch,” she said quietly.

He pulled his arm back and adjusted his sleeves. “Thanks,” he said. “But it’s not mine. I promised to look after it for a friend.”

She nodded. Illya was making arrangements, then. Making sure his friends had something to remember him by. Sensible. She wondered if there was anything else in her apartment that she had yet to find. Though, it would be superfluous. She had so many small mementos from their time together. The ring she had told Solo she never wanted, the queen from one of Illya’s chess sets. Nothing that would identify him, nothing that would seem sentimental to anyone else. No love letters, no pictures. Just the small things which meant the most.

Solo was looking intently at her. She caught his eye. “I’m going to give it back to him,” he said. “I promise.”

She shook her head. “Don’t make that promise to me, Napoleon,” she said. “Please. I can’t live with it.”

He reached over again and took both of her hands, and now she knew they looked like lovers — which was good, because they were being dangerously candid. He looked earnestly into her eyes, “I promise, Gaby.”

She started crying then. Solo stood up and pulled her into a hug. She buried her face into his fashionable Italian shirt, staining it with her mascara, and understanding that the fact that he allowed this was a mark of true friendship on his part.

He took her back to his apartment that night, saying, “A few too many,” to the bartender in explanation for her lability as they left. It was probably good, she thought numbly, that they went home together. Good for their cover. Nobody would think they spent the night talking about international espionage or betrayal. She wondered now why they had met in public in the first place, when they could have met here and spoken openly. Then she remembered: it was because they were both spies, and a public meeting was less likely to be an assassination attempt on either party’s side: because even though their countries were allied and they were old friends they were still in the business of lying, professionally.

Besides, it had been several months since they saw each other, and there was a chance that if she asked to come straight over to his place he might think she was finally taking him up on an offer to help her ‘relax’ he had made four or five years ago.

Solo insisted that she take his bed and gave her a set of women’s silk pyjamas whose presence in her flat confused her only because it implied his women wore clothes anywhere in his apartment let alone the bed. Then again, they were her size. It was possible he had them for just such an event as this. It was the kind of gesture which reminded her that for all his seeming superficiality he had genuine feelings for her — and for Illya, whose watch he was not just keeping safe but wearing on his person at all times.

She climbed into the bed and wrapped the bedclothes around her. When was the last time I slept in a man’s bed, she wondered? It might actually have been Illya’s. Of course she had been in other men’s beds since then. But she hadn’t slept: often she had slunk home afterwards, or lain in bed beside them waiting for the sun to come up. This time she fell asleep almost immediately, and she dreamt of nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was going to space things out a bit but I'm going away for a few days so I figured I would just go ahead and post this and the final part together and hope there are no glaring errors which would have been fixed with more proofing.


End file.
